Thursday, February 13, 2014

GOTCHA! If the title lured you to read this in the hopes of something saucy I apologize. I couldn't resist trying to sex it up because we are snowed in here in Pennsylvania and I'm bored. I'll try to add something salacious to the always hot topic of the Invisible Primary.... but even I may not be that talented.

The "Bush," I reference, of course, would be Jeb. Son of 41, brother of 43, and if the chattering class has anything to say about it, number 45 himself. A nice article from Larry Sabato gives some of the most recent 2016 rankings on the GOP side and puts Jeb as a "wild card" which to me takes a verrrry broad use of the word "wild." A Bush running for president you say? How novel. And using a man named "Jeb" in the same sentence as "wild" just conjures up images of some rollicking country club party where someone nicknamed "Trip" had one too many G & Ts and drove a golf cart into the sandtrap (clutch the pearls!). And it's not so wild to think that he's running since the guy has checked all of the IP marks (wrote a book, gave some big platform speeches) and he's got the name recognition to raise some serious cash. I was actually going to insert some prurient language here about Bush's thick hair and the heat in Florida but I will restrain myself because this is clearly a high-brow blog. Don't say I didn't try.

Anyway, it's the Christie/ GWB kerfuffle that is causing all of the Bush speculation (Go ahead - insert "speculating for Bush" joke here please), because serious people (that's YOU Sus Paley!) have wondered whether Christie can come back from le scandal. I doubt it: His narrative frame has changed and that's never good. People see him as a petty tyrant (as opposed to a tyrant with a purpose which is fine, really). And the world's best comedians have had a field day mocking the crap out of him (the best of which is right HERE. And you are welcome). To quote the scholar Ke$ha: "He's going down. I'm yelling timber."

Which leaves a big hole for the GOP to fill and very few people on the Republican bench who can fill it. Bush is wise to keep quiet, because look at what happened to Christie when his star started to burn really brightly? The inevitable backlash against a winner bit him in the tuchas. This is what most concerns those on Team Clinton: Don't use the "I" word (Which is "inevitable." And certainly don't use "I" in the word "Team" because we all know there is no "I" in "Team." Sheesh) because that inevitability thing helped to tank the HRC campaign in 2008. You become an assumption and two things happens: a) The media takes you for granted; and b) The backlash begins.

So there is reason for Jeb to lay low as long as possible, plus there is the truism that three Bushes may be one too many (some would argue three too many, but I'll leave that to the partisans). The possibility of another Bush-Clinton match is at one time alluring because we can pretend it is 1992 again (and that was a super fun year - am I right?). And yet, maybe former First Lady Barbara Bush was right when she said that the nation has "had enough Bushes." Let me add to that, mayhaps, the possibility that we've had enough Clintons and Pauls too. Just a thought.

And speaking of people named Paul. there is more to say about Rand Paul and his completely absurd conversation about Hillary, Bill Clinton, and Monica Lewisnky but I will let Andy Borowitz take that from here.

I would like to start a snow day contest for the best Bush-IP-sex joke. We're stuck inside - might as well make it interesting. Winner gets a "Ship Happens" tee shirt or I buy them a drink at the Midwest Political Science Association meeting in April. Ready? Set? GO!